Poe's law

Poe’s Law is an Internet adage that inappropriately compares God's mighty handiwork during the Creation to an insipid genre of satire. The original version of this "law" was formulated by Nathan Poe on the Internet site Christian Forums in August 2005:

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Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is [utterly] impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article.[3]

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The adage is sometimes generalized as, "It is impossible to tell for certain the difference between genuine stupidity and a parody of stupidity."

The inconsistency of evolutionists and atheists concerning debating creationists was commented on by the Christian apologetic website True Free Thinker which declared: "Interestingly enough, having noted that since some atheists refuse to debate “creationists” but then go on to debate some of those people but not others, it is clear that they are, in reality, being selective and making excuses for absconding from difficulties..."[5]

The reality is that the New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won't create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings. Far from it: It might actually encourage new levels of mass superstition. And that's not a conclusion to take on faith -- it's what the empirical data tell us.

"What Americans Really Believe," a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians....

This is not a new finding. In his 1983 book "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener," skeptic and science writer Martin Gardner cited the decline of traditional religious belief among the better educated as one of the causes for an increase in pseudoscience, cults and superstition. He referenced a 1980 study published in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer that showed irreligious college students to be by far the most likely to embrace paranormal beliefs, while born-again Christian college students were the least likely.[6]

Parody and satire have their place - Christian parody of atheism and evolution

Although mere appeals to ridicule is a logical fallacy, parody and satire certainly have their place. Because Christianity is so well attested to via evidence and sound argumentation such as the work of Simon Greenleaf and other Christian apologists, Christians certainly have liberty to use parody and satire. For example, there are certainly many parodies and satires of atheism and evolution (see: Comedy and satires concerning atheism and evolution ).

References

↑Poe, Nathan (11 August 2005). Big contradictions in the evolution theory. christianforums.com. Retrieved on 20 August 2011. “Poe's Law: Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is uttrerly [sic] impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article.”